


The Meeting Room in Building R, Floor 1

by masterofesoterica



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Happy, How Do I Tag, M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 04:05:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8953078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/masterofesoterica/pseuds/masterofesoterica
Summary: The study group at Yavin 4 University.
Or, a college/university AU where there is no war and no-one dies.





	

 

JYN

 

Jyn never intended to go to university. She thought she’d probably live by her wits somehow, as she’d done for the past few years. She liked the life of a roamer, though she had ended up in a few scrapes here and there. Thankfully, the worst of them had only landed in her in jail for a few nights. But then she her father had pressed a sheaf of papers into her hand on his deathbed and she realised she’d have to study for a good thirty years or so at some place of higher education just to understand—and expand upon—her father’s discoveries. The next day she took out a bunch of course catalogues and called up her guardian, Saw.

 

\--

 

CASSIAN

 

After his parents died, Cassian spent days bouncing around foster homes before ending up with Davits, or Draven, as he preferred to be addressed by last name only. Draven was strict but fair, an ex-soldier who’d retired to a permanent position at the base. Draven had quickly seen Cassian’s latent brilliance, which had previously been channelled into stealing things out of cars and picking the locks of empty houses over Christmas, and managed to secure him a scholarship place at a prestigious private school. Cassian had never quite fit in amongst military brats and the scion of the wealthy, being both the scholarship-kid and reformed-delinquent, and several years older than his peers. But he had met Kay there, so it wasn’t all bad. It was Kay who’d convinced him to apply to the Engineering program at Yavin 4.

 

\--

 

BODHI

 

Bodhi had not ended up at Jedha University because he’d wanted to. He’d merely fallen into it, as he’d fallen into a lot of things, pressured by his unforgiving parents or driven by some unspoken fear that he was not good enough. But this new year, he vowed, would be the beginning of his new life. He’d been reading a copy of _Science_ magazine when he’d come across an obituary:

 

_Galen Erso, astrophysicist and technology pioneer, has perhaps changed the way that we understand the world…_

 

Bodhi wanted to change the way people thought of the world. Galen Erso used to be a face he’d paste into his notebooks, reminding himself of the things he could achieve even as a young man. At some point, Bodhi had abandoned those dreams without consideration.

 

Several hours after reading that page in his magazine, he’d transferred to Yavin 4, and begun to pack his suitcase, preparing to leave for the new semester.

 

\--

 

CHIRRUT

 

Chirrut was blind, but the first class of each new year always felt similar. There was the hubbub and chatter, an undercurrent of jitteriness, and minds screaming out for new knowledge. He cleared his throat and the room fell almost silent. Chirrut smiled a little and leaned into the microphone to speak, gesturing at his teaching assistant to prepare the necessary slides.

 

Chirrut finishes his first lecture of the academic year the same way he always did. “If anyone wants to discuss the Force, I hold a study group each Tuesday afternoon at 1:00PM in the meeting room in Building R, Floor 1.”

 

“The Force?!” He heard alternately disbelieving and curious murmurings passing through the lecture theatre. He smiled his slight smile again, and reached for his cane.

 

\--

 

BAZE

 

“I’m the only one who ever comes to these meetings,” Baze speaks through a mouthful of his sandwich. He’s here on his lunch break, not that anyone back at the office cares about lunch breaks. Their organisation is on several eco-terrorism watch lists (misguidedly), so opposing capitalistic structures in general is kind of their thing.

 

“I have a feeling that we’ll get some students this year,” Chirrut says serenely, his eyes half-lidded.

 

“Did the Force tell you that?” Baze snorts.

 

But as if on cue, there is a knock at the door, and a head pokes in.

 

“Uh, hello Professor Îmwe?”

 

“Welcome!” Chirrut looks just a little bit smug, “What’s your name?”

 

“It’s Jyn, Jyn Erso. I was in your class yesterday.”

 

Before she can say anything more, however, a few others appear at the door. Baze has to stop himself from gaping at the three students standing there. But Chirrut’s smile is wider than ever, his eyes crinkled as he gestures at them to come in.

 

One of them is tall and lanky, with ebony skin and almost comically long limbs and a shaved head; another is shorter, with an uncertain smile on his handsome, tan face, and slightly messy hair; and the last is hunched over a little, long dark hair tied back, and a pair of goggles perched absent-mindedly on his head.

 

“Three more,” Chirrut says, “well, that’s the most number of attendees we’ve ever had.”

 

Baze observes the flash of slight surprise on their faces that a blind man could know there were three of them. Then, hardly missing a beat, the tallest sits down in a chair at the conference table, and says in a flat, wry voice, “I believe that there is very little evidence for the existence of the Force.”

 

“You and me both,” Baze says, and takes another bite of his sandwich.

 

 

\--

 

KAY

 

Kay’s parents named him after a previously-classified military program developing artificial intelligences for use in combat. It is a shorthand he uses to describe his strange childhood. He did not have a friend until Cassian appeared, the new kid forced to sit in the only empty seat next to the school outcast. It turned out fortunately for the both of them.

 

(“What’s your name?”

 

“K2S0”

 

“I’m going to call you Kay. And you can call me Cassian.”

 

“I can do that.”)

 

Cassian commits himself to the study group as he does to everything he becomes attached to—with a laser-like oneness. (Kay mocks him mercilessly for way he looks at Jyn, but it is _mostly_ good-natured because Kay hasn’t disliked Jyn since their fourth week.) But for once Cassian is not the only foolish one. Everyone else seems to share Cassian’s enthusiasm—Jyn, with her stubborn mouth and a fierceness in her eyes; Bodhi, with his wide-eyed hunger for knowledge and occasional chattering excitement; and of course, Kay finds himself swept up in it all, despite his typical detachment. (It’s not that Kay has a choice—someone has to stop Cassian, well all of them really, making foolish decisions—it’s just that it never is a chore.)

 

For once, Kay is in a room where no one questions his bluntness, and everyone listens carefully to his statistical predictions.

 

Kay’s not sure what form this loyalty to the study group actually takes, except that it’s just there. It’s strange and unquantifiable (which is deeply frustrating), but it undeniably binds them together. It’s there when they file into the meeting room each Tuesday without fail. It’s there when they hardly discuss the Force at all, when they spend the allotted hour bickering and then they go to the campus café and continue the meeting after they’ve been kicked out by a _real_ student club; it’s there when they live out of Kay’s apartment for two weeks before exams, taking turns to brew the coffee and order food delivery; it’s there when they all choose to spend Christmas at the creaky old house which Chirrut and Baze share, and proceed to fall asleep sprawled out on various couches in front of a dying fire that seems to Kay like the last echoes of the sun.

 

And then it is not a mystery at all.

 

It is home.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This AU fic is absolute proof of my inability to watch a film without immediately writing fanfic to try to cope with the ending. Sorry. I should not be allowed near these things.


End file.
